With rumors swirling that Jack Lowden is a heavy favorite to become the next James Bond, what if those rumors are actually a clever bit of misdirection and Lowden instead turns up in Bond 26 as MI5 operative River Cartwright from Slow Horses? As I’ve mentioned previously, I’ve always wondered why Bond’s MI6 world rarely intersects with its domestic counterpart, MI5, and this could be an intriguing way to finally bridge that gap. Rather than teaming up with Felix Leiter and the CIA, perhaps Bond could find himself working alongside MI5, with a much-improved River Cartwright helping tackle a domestic threat that quickly develops international consequences. It would certainly be an unexpected way to introduce a new era of Bond, while giving Lowden the opportunity to bring a familiar character into an entirely different cinematic world.

Of course, a crossover this direct has never happened before, and there’s a legitimate risk that bringing River Cartwright into Bond’s world could feel more like stunt casting than organic storytelling. My biggest hesitation, however, is the rather significant matter of Amazon owning Bond while Slow Horses calls Apple TV+ home, although stranger corporate marriages have certainly happened. And if we’re already dreaming about streaming-service spy crossovers, an Amazon-based James Bond and Jack Ryan team-up suddenly doesn’t sound quite so crazy.